Spoilermakers: Look out, Michigan, Purdue has an unrivaled history of upsets
When Jeff Brohm arrived to coach Purdue, he knew the program had two Rose Bowl appearances, an incredible all-time roster of quarterbacks that included Bob Griese and Drew Brees, an equally impressive group of defensive ends, and a coaching list that included Joe Tiller and Jack Mollenkopf.
But he didn’t know much about the Spoilermakers.
Since the AP poll began in 1936, no unranked team has been more successful against the highest-ranked teams in the country. The Boilermakers have nine wins against AP No. 1 or No. 2 teams as an unranked squad, four more than any other program in the poll era. Purdue gets another opportunity Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, Fox), as it makes its first Big Ten championship game appearance and takes on Michigan, which is ranked No. 2 in both the AP poll and the College Football Playoff rankings.
Brohm, who coached Purdue to wins over No. 2 Ohio State in 2018 and No. 2 Iowa in 2021, thinks the Spoilermakers tradition stems from two sources.
“Without question, we’ve had some opportunities when you play in this conference, and then our nonconference schedule is normally pretty daggone good as well,” Brohm told ESPN. “And then Purdue is normally a blue-collar, hardworking school, and that’s our team approach. You just try to make the most of what you have, work hard and figure things out along the way, and see if you can pull some things out.”
Brohm credits his approach to his own college coach, Louisville’s Howard Schnellenberger, who was masterful in “getting his team to think that they’re better than they are,” Brohm said, and to believe anything is achievable. Schnellenberger, known for his immaculate mustache and pipe smoking, consistently communicated in ways to inspire confidence, both in the locker room and publicly “so everyone could hear.”
Although Brohm isn’t as bold with his public messaging, his closed-door directives are all about belief, especially in the 24 hours leading up to kickoff. He’ll take the same approach before Purdue takes on Michigan as an unranked, 17-point underdog.
“You can’t be in awe, you can’t lose confidence, you can’t listen to what everyone says and writes, which may be accurate,” he said. “You’ve got to believe that on any given day, if you prepare right and you play aggressive — not timid, not to keep the game close, but aggressive — that you can have a chance.”
Here’s a look at Purdue’s nine wins as an unranked team against the AP No. 1 or No. 2, with input from Brohm and Cory Palm, Purdue’s director of broadcast services, who is working on his second book on Boiler football history.
Purdue 24, No. 2 Iowa 7
Date: Oct. 16, 2021
Location: Iowa City, Iowa
1:48
Purdue upsets No. 2 Iowa.
Iowa had earned its highest AP ranking since 1985 entering the game, after rallying to beat Penn State the week before. But the Hawkeyes were limited on offense, relying heavily on their superb defense and special teams to win games.
“We had to find a way to get a lead,” Brohm said.
Purdue jumped ahead 7-0 and then 14-7 behind quarterback Aidan O’Connell, who ran for a touchdown and threw for another. The Boilers defense then took control in the second half, holding Iowa to 15 net yards on its first three drives before recording interceptions on the next two possessions. Cam Allen had two of Purdue’s four interceptions, and the offense surged behind O’Connell (375 pass yards, two touchdowns) and wide receiver David Bell (240 receiving yards, one touchdown).
“We made plays in the passing game,” Brohm said. “You have to be aggressive in your approach, you have to be attacking. We made them throw the ball more than they wanted, and we were able to get interceptions. That’s not the formula they like to use. It’s running the football, a little bit of play-action, play defense and keep the game close. We got them off that formula.”
Purdue 49, No. 2 Ohio State 20
Date: Oct. 20, 2018
Location: West Lafayette, Indiana
3:28
Last week, College GameDay told Tyler Trent’s story and showed his love for the Boilermakers. See how much Purdue’s upset win over Ohio State meant to the sophomore and super-fan.
The most memorable night of Brohm’s tenure included an upset against Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes, and also the presence of Tyler Trent, the Purdue student and superfan fighting cancer. Trent, whose story was featured on “College GameDay” that morning, watched his beloved Boilers never trail Ohio State, hold the Buckeyes to six points through three quarters and reach the end zone four times in the fourth.
Freshman wide receiver Rondale Moore had a huge night (170 receiving yards, 58 return yards), along with quarterback David Blough and running back D.J. Knox, while Markus Bailey led the defense with 15 tackles and a 41-yard pick-six in the closing minutes. The 29-point winning margin was the third largest by an unranked team against an AP top-two opponent.
“There was a lot of motivation, not only playing a top team but the Tyler Trent story,” Brohm said, as Trent would die Jan. 1, 2019. “While Ohio State was really good, a couple teams had played it close with them. It was a matter of, ‘OK, how can we take that to the next step?’ We were just aggressive. We changed things up on defense. We had them on their heels a little bit on offense.”
Purdue blitzed Ohio State and showed different looks, turning away the Buckeyes in the red zone. Then, after a relatively quiet third quarter, the Boilers hit the gas with big plays.
“We extended the lead because we stayed aggressive,” Brohm said. “If you’re not going to do that and take chances, you’re going to find a way to screw it up against a good team. You want to make sure your players know, ‘We’re not sitting on a lead.'”
Purdue 28, No. 2 Ohio State 23
Date: Oct. 6, 1983
Location: West Lafayette, Indiana
Ohio State came into Ross-Ade Stadium with an offense led by several future NFL players: quarterback Mike Tomczak, running back Keith Byars and wide receiver Cris Carter. Boilers coach Leon Burtnett would call the Buckeyes “the best offensive football team we’ve faced.”
But Purdue had its own future NFL standouts, including quarterback Jim Everett, who completed 17 of 23 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns. The Boilers had a big fourth quarter, scoring twice off Tomczak interceptions.
“They hung with Ohio State the whole game, and the cherry on top was a Rod Woodson pick-six late in the game that put it out of reach,” Palm said.
Purdue had opened the season by upsetting No. 8 Notre Dame in the first game played inside the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. The Boilers also beat Michigan that fall and tied for second place in the Big Ten, but finished 7-5 after falling to Virginia in the Peach Bowl.
Purdue 16, No. 1 Michigan 14
Date: Nov. 6, 1976
Location: West Lafayette, Indiana
Bo Schembechler brought one of his most dominant teams to West Lafayette. Michigan had won its first eight games by a combined score of 352-58. The Wolverines had shut out four opponents, including the previous two before Purdue, and handed Navy the worst defeat (70-14) in team history.
“That one was as big a shock as any of them,” Palm said. “The [Purdue] head coach, Alex Agase, was on his way out, they’d lost three in a row. Michigan, they were looking like world-beaters.”
But Purdue turned to running back Scott Dierking, who logged a team-record 38 carries and rushed for 162 yards against the Big Ten’s top run defense. Michigan scored on its first possession but would score only once more, as Purdue stifled quarterback Rick Leach. Down 14-13, Purdue methodically drove downfield and turned to Rock Supan, a defensive back with 11 tackles in the game, for a 23-yard field goal. He made it and Purdue won after Michigan missed a 37-yard attempt to the left.
It would be Michigan’s only regular-season loss. The Wolverines would rise all the way back up to No. 2 after beating Ohio State later in the year but fell 14-6 to No. 3 USC in the Rose Bowl. Purdue went on to finish 5-6, its fourth straight losing season, and fired Agase.
Purdue 31, No. 2 Notre Dame 20
Date: Sept. 28, 1974
Location: South Bend, Indiana
Notre Dame had won the national championship in 1973, going undefeated under coach Ara Parseghian, and opened the season with easy road wins over Georgia Tech and Northwestern. Purdue lost its opener by 14 points to Wisconsin and then tied Miami (Ohio), missing three field goal attempts down the stretch.
As a result, the Boilers came in as 35-point underdogs.
“Agase spoke about taking umbrage with the fact they were such big underdogs,” Palm said. “They certainly showed up in that game.”
Purdue surged for 24 points in the first quarter, the most ever scored against Notre Dame in the first 15 minutes. The surge included a Purdue fumble recovery on Notre Dame’s second play, a 52-yard Pete Gross touchdown run and a pick-six by linebacker Bob Mannella.
The (Lafayette) Journal and Courier headline for Sept. 30 read: “Spoilermakers Strike Again!”
Purdue 23, No. 1 Minnesota 14
Date: Nov. 12, 1960
Location: Minneapolis
Purdue had a fascinating season in 1960, finishing 4-4-1 but ranking No. 19 in the final AP poll. Six of the Boilers’ nine opponents entered games ranked in the AP top 20, and Purdue twice faced No. 1 teams, falling to Iowa but beating Minnesota, which would go on to win the Rose Bowl and the national championship.
The Boilers surged to a 14-0 lead behind quarterback Bernie Allen, who would go on to play 12 seasons in Major League Baseball. Allen kicked a field goal in the second half and Purdue held off Minnesota. Defensive end Forest Farmer had two sacks and four receptions, earning national lineman of the week honors.
Purdue also beat No. 3 Ohio State and No. 12 Notre Dame that season, while opening with a tie against No. 8 UCLA.
Purdue 20, No. 1 Michigan State 13
Date: Oct. 19, 1957
Location: East Lansing, Michigan
Purdue stumbled into the game at 0-3, while Michigan State was beginning its surge under Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty. The Spartans came in as 21-point favorites over the Boilers, who had several players missing because of the flu. Michigan State held a significant edge in first downs (19-7) and completions (10-2) but lost five fumbles, including one in the second quarter that led to Purdue’s first touchdown.
It was another play in the second quarter that would haunt Michigan State, though. A Walt Kowalczyk touchdown was nullified by a late hit penalty. Rather than correctly enforcing the penalty after the play, officials took away the touchdown and assessed the penalty, leading to a missed field goal attempt.
Daugherty in 1984 discussed the play, saying the official who called the penalty was replacing a more experienced official, who had to leave after his wife had a heart attack. The Big Ten later apologized to MSU for the officiating snafu.
“That call changed the complexion of the game and we probably would have routed Purdue,” Daugherty said.
MSU wouldn’t lose another game but finished No. 3 in the final poll. Purdue would lose only once more, to No. 6 Ohio State, to go 5-4 on the season.
Purdue 6, No. 2 Michigan State 0
Date: Oct. 24, 1953
Location: West Lafayette, Indiana
Michigan State had won the national championship in 1952 and came to Purdue on a 28-game win streak, the longest in the nation. The Boilers were 0-4 and banged up, but turned to a fullback named Dan Pobojewski, who had started his career at MSU but couldn’t make the team.
Pobojewski provided the game’s only points, scoring from a yard out early in the fourth quarter.
“I went to school there for two years and wasn’t good enough to make their club,” Pobojewski told reporters afterward. “When I finally scored and rolled into the end zone, I just wanted to lie there and cry.”
Michigan State hadn’t been shut out in 59 games. Purdue was shut out in its next two games and dropped a third, 21-6 to Ohio State, before finishing the season with its only other victory, a 30-0 pummeling of rival Indiana.
Purdue 28, No. 1 Notre Dame 14
Date: Oct. 10, 1950
Location: South Bend, Indiana
From 1946 to 1949, Notre Dame didn’t lose a game, tying just twice (against Army in 1946 and USC in 1948). Coach Frank Leahy’s team won AP national titles in 1946, 1947 and 1949, and opened the 1950 season with a win against North Carolina.
Purdue wasn’t known for quarterbacks back then, but Dale Samuels, a first-year starter who stood just 5-foot-9, began to shape the team’s tradition. He completed nine passes for 158 yards and two touchdowns. The Boilers jumped ahead 21-0, but Notre Dame came back with two scores before Samuels found Mike Maccioli for a 56-yard touchdown pass. Notre Dame had not lost at home since 1942.
“The party on campus lasted two days,” Palm said. “They canceled class on the following Monday. There was a pep rally and everybody came out. Nobody was in a learning mood.”
The hangover seemingly impacted the team, as Purdue lost its next six games before finishing with a win over Indiana. The (Lafayette) Journal and Courier reported that 40 million people learned about the outcome through radio or newsreels. Among them: a high school student in Ohio who was an aspiring pilot and engineer. His name: Neil Armstrong.
“He credits hearing those highlights on the radio as one of his first exposures to Purdue,” Palm said. “He graduated in ’55.”
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David Schoenfield
In a season when offense has often been hard to find — when 20 qualified pitchers have an ERA under 3.00 and 27 relievers with at least 20 innings have an ERA under 2.00 — New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh have produced history-crunching numbers that would stand out in any era, but especially in 2025.
Judge’s season isn’t unexpected. He hit 62 home runs in 2022 and 58 in 2024, when he became the first player to slug .700 since Barry Bonds, but he is putting up numbers that exceed the lofty totals of those seasons. He’s hitting .364/.464/.724 with 28 home runs and is on pace for 11.9 bWAR — a figure only five position players have achieved or surpassed. And he has done all this despite a six-game slump in mid-June when he went 2-for-22.
Raleigh’s season, on the other hand, is one of the most unexpected MVP-level campaigns in recent memory. The 28-year-old is hitting .275/.380/.651 and leads all of MLB with 69 RBIs and 32 home runs, just the 24th time a player has at least 30 homers through 81 team games. And though he has hit 30 home runs before — he’s just the fourth catcher with at least three 30-homer seasons — he’s already two from his career high … and we’re still in June. It, of course, feels impossible that he’ll continue his current 65-home run pace, but he’s in a position to finish with one of the greatest offensive seasons by a catcher. His 4.3 bWAR puts him on pace for 8.9, which would top Mike Piazza’s 8.7 in 1997 as the highest for a catcher.
With the Yankees and Mariners playing their 81st games Friday — the halfway point of the season — let’s dig into some of the greatest power seasons from past first halves to put into perspective what Judge and Raleigh are doing.
Note: All stats will be through 81 team games rather than the more traditional first-half totals listed on Baseball-Reference, which vary in terms of games played based on when the All-Star Game took place.
Greatest power half-seasons ever
Most home runs through 81 games
Here are the top six sluggers on the list — and the number of home runs they finished with:
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Barry Bonds, 2001 Giants: 39 (73)
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Mark McGwire, 1998 Cardinals: 37 (70)
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Babe Ruth, 1921 Yankees: 35 (59)
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Reggie Jackson, 1969 A’s: 34 (47)
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Babe Ruth, 1928 Yankees: 33 (54)
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Jimmie Foxx, 1932 A’s: 33 (58)
Ruth and Foxx played when the schedule was 154 games, so they didn’t have those eight extra games the others did. A 23-year-old Jackson, in just his second full season in the majors, was on pace to break Roger Maris’ then-record of 61, but he tired down the stretch, hitting just five home runs in August and two in September.
Raleigh is part of a group that includes five others with 32 home runs — Ruth (1930), Maris (1961), Ken Griffey Jr. (1994), Sammy Sosa (1998 and 1999) and Luis Gonzalez (2001). Ruth tailed off and finished with 49 home runs, and the strike interrupted Griffey’s season in August, leaving him with 40 home runs with 50 games to go (a 58-homer pace).
The last player with at least 30 home runs through 81 games: Shohei Ohtani … but in 2021, not 2024. That was the season he had that amazing stretch of 16 home runs in 21 games before the All-Star break, but he tailed off in the second half and finished with 46.
Can Raleigh avoid the fate so many others with high early home run totals have met? As you would expect, that group of players who hit at least 30 home runs in the first half tailed off, averaging 32 home runs in their first 81 games but 19 the rest of the way, for a season average of 51. But four of those 23 seasons came in the 154-game era, three others came in the strike-shortened 1994 season (Griffey, Frank Thomas and Matt Williams) and two came from players who suffered injuries that limited their playing time in the second half (Jose Canseco in 1999 and McGwire in 2000).
None of them were catchers, though.
Best power/average totals through 81 games
Let’s start by looking at a list of the highest OPS figures through 81 games:
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Barry Bonds, 2004 Giants: 1.414
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Babe Ruth, 1921 Yankees: 1.374
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Barry Bonds, 2001 Giants: 1.357
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Barry Bonds, 2002 Giants: 1.342
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Babe Ruth, 1930 Yankees: 1.338
OK, you get the idea. In terms of raw OPS, Ruth also owns three of the next five spots. He and Bonds dominate all these leaderboards, whether it’s over half a season or a full season. Judge ranks 25th with his 1.202 OPS.
However, Judge is doing this in a lower-scoring era — that’s why his adjusted stats such as wRC+ or OPS+ rank among the best ever. His wRC+ of 221 would rank seventh all time — behind three Bonds seasons, two Ruth seasons and one from Ted Williams, and just ahead of Judge’s 2024 season. His OPS+ of 226 ranks 10th, behind seasons from those same three players, who are widely considered the greatest hitters.
Still, Judge’s combination of power with a high batting average is unique for any era. He is one of just nine players hitting .360 or higher with at least 28 home runs through 81 team games (assuming he remains above .360 after the Yankees play on Friday night):
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Babe Ruth, 1921 Yankees: .372, 35 HRs
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Jimmie Foxx, 1932 A’s: .383, 33 HRs
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Babe Ruth, 1930 Yankees: .374, 32 HRs
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Mickey Mantle, 1956 Yankees: .371, 30 HRs
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Frank Thomas, 1994 White Sox: .373, 30 HRs
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Babe Ruth, 1927 Yankees: .366, 29 HRs
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Lou Gehrig, 1927 Yankees: .397, 28 HRs
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Tony Perez, 1970 Reds: .363, 28 HRs
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Aaron Judge, 2025 Yankees: .364, 28 HRs
These are some of the greatest hitting seasons of all time. Ruth set the record for total bases in 1921. Foxx hit .364 with 58 home runs and 169 RBIs in 1932. Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956 when he hit .353 with 52 home runs and 130 RBIs. Yes, that’s Ruth and Gehrig from the same season when Ruth blasted 60 home runs and Gehrig hit 47, with Ruth’s total topping every other American League team … You get the gist.
Judge’s average is remarkable given the overall AL average is just .243. When Ruth and Gehrig tore apart the AL in 1927, for example, the league average was .286. The lowest average from this list was Mantle’s 1956 season, when the non-pitcher average was still .264. Looking at Judge’s season from this perspective makes his power/average combo one of the most impressive 81-game first halves we’ve seen, even aside from the era-adjusted analytics.
What it means for Judge and Raleigh
Is this the greatest season from a catcher we’ve seen?
Raleigh has hit 29 of his 32 home runs as a catcher (he has a 1.116 OPS while catching compared with .659 in 17 games as a DH). There are a couple of ways to look at the single-season home run record for catchers. The list for primary catchers — at least 50% of their games behind the plate — looks like this:
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Salvador Perez, 2021 Royals: 48
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Johnny Bench, 1970 Reds: 45
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Javy Lopez, 2003 Braves: 43
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Roy Campanella, 1953 Dodgers: 41
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Todd Hundley, 1996 Mets: 41
Bench added another 40-homer season in 1972 while Piazza had two 40-homer seasons. Perez hit just 33 as a catcher in 2021, with his other 15 coming as a DH. Lopez is the leader for home runs hit while playing the catcher position with 42.
Raleigh has been a low-average power hitter in his first three-plus seasons in the majors — he hit .220 with 34 home runs last year — but now he’s hitting for more power and a higher average. Sifting through his Statcast metrics, there aren’t obvious changes in his approach or swing patterns. Like Bryce Harper, he has always combined an above-average walk rate with a below-average chase rate, although he hasn’t been as extreme in his chase rate as Harper (although he has had higher strikeout rates than Harper).
There have been a few slight improvements across the board from 2024: His chase rate has improved 3 percentage points; his strikeout rate is down 3 percentage points; his fly ball rate is up about 4 percentage points; but his pulled fly ball rate, however, is up over 11 percentage points.
That last one is the big number. That has helped Raleigh to a few more wall scrapers. He is tied with Michael Busch and Paul Goldschmidt with 12 “doubters” — home runs that would be out of just one to seven parks based on distance.
But there’s another reason for Raleigh’s improvement: As a switch-hitter, he has always been much better from the left side, but this season, he’s mashing from the right side, hitting .319 with 11 home runs against left-handers after hitting .183 with 13 home runs against them last season. His “fast swing” percentage (swings of 75-plus mph) from the right side has gone way up, from 39.3% to 48.5%.
Raleigh is also not missing mistakes. Check his results on middle-middle pitches (ones thrown over the center of the plate, both horizontally and vertically) that he puts in play:
2024: .315 average, .795 slugging, 11 HR in 73 AB
2025: .515 average, 1.576 slugging, 11 HR in 33 AB
Can he keep it going? The big question might be how he’ll hold up in the long run. Raleigh has started 78 of Seattle’s first 80 games and pinch hit one other time (he hit a game-tying, two-run single in the ninth inning). He played 153 games last season and has the luxury of some DH games, but this is still a huge workload for a catcher. Last Saturday, he caught all nine innings of a three-hour game in 94-degree heat at Wrigley Field. He was in the lineup Sunday as the DH and back behind the plate the next two nights.
He’s obviously vital to the Mariners — although Seattle’s often maligned lineup is second in the majors in road OPS (but 25th at home). For now, with the Mariners fighting for a wild-card spot after being overtaken by the Houston Astros atop the AL West, manager Dan Wilson has to ride his hot hand; given the Mariners’ unexpected rotation issues, they need all the runs they can get.
Can Judge stay this dominant?
In one sense, we already know the answer to this: No. When Judge was hitting .432 on May 3, his BABIP was .512. Since then, it’s a still-lofty .383, but that is more in line with the .367 mark he had last season, when he finished with a .322 average. He has also avoided prolonged droughts; even when he homered just once in a 20-game stretch in April, he still hit .425. Indeed, it feels about time for Judge to launch into another of his patented home run tears. Yankees manager Aaron Boone, like Wilson with Raleigh, is riding the momentum of his star player: Judge hasn’t missed a game, although Boone has started him 18 times at DH.
As for the MVP race between these two AL sluggers, we’ll leave that for deeper into the season. Both players have a higher WAR figure on FanGraphs — where it looks like a tighter race: 6.1 for Judge, 5.6 for Raleigh — than Baseball-Reference. (FanGraphs incorporates catcher framing into its evaluation, a plus for Raleigh, who won the AL’s Platinum Glove last season as best overall defender.) It would be quite the debate: an all-time great season for a hitter against maybe the greatest power season from a catcher (and a good defensive one at that).
For now, sit back and enjoy the slugging.
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Bill Connelly
Army and Navy are in the AAC. Liberty and New Mexico State landed in Conference USA. UMass decided to head back to the MAC. Sacramento State’s efforts to become an FBS independent aren’t working out. In a year, Oregon State and Washington State will be members of a fully stocked Pac-12 again. (They aren’t really indies now, either, but I’m putting them in here because I didn’t want to write a two-team conference preview.)
The indie party has thinned out significantly in recent years. It looks like we’ll be down to Notre Dame and UConn by next year, and, one of these years maybe those perpetual “UConn to the Big 12?” rumors will actually bear fruit, too. Regardless, these four teams bring loads of storylines to the table. Notre Dame might be more loaded this season than it was during last year’s earlier-than-expected run to the national title game. UConn has restocked after last year’s thrilling (and rather out of nowhere) nine-win campaign. Oregon State’s roster has stabilized after a tumultuous 2024, and Washington State is attempting a complete culture transplant.
Let’s preview 2025’s independents (and the final two-team Pac-12)!
Every week through the summer, Bill Connelly will preview another FBS conference, ultimately including all 136 FBS teams. The previews will include 2024 breakdowns, 2025 previews and team-by-team capsules. Here are the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and AAC previews.
2024 recap
We had a lot of plot lines running here despite a small number of teams. In their first season after watching 10 conference mates (and a bunch of players) depart the Pac-12, Wazzu and Oregon State started strong and collapsed; the former started 8-1 and finished 0-4, while the latter started 4-1 and finished 1-6. Wazzu then lost its head coach and most of its stars as well.
Meanwhile, out East, Jim Mora was engineering UConn’s best season in 14 years while fending off all sorts of transfer portal vultures. Per SP+, the Huskies fielded their best defense since 2015 and their best offense since 2009, and after a pretty clear regular-season split — 0-4 against power conference teams, 8-0 against the Group of 5 — they capped a nine-win campaign with a 27-14 Fenway Bowl thumping of North Carolina.
Oh yeah, and Notre Dame reached the national title game. The Fighting Irish had their line depth tested significantly — only one offensive or defensive lineman started all 16 games — and passed with flying colors. After a shocking loss to NIU in Week 2, they had to win out to reach the CFP and did so, and then they beat Indiana, Georgia and Penn State before a midgame lull in the finals resulted in a 34-23 loss to Ohio State. It’s hard to find new firsts to accomplish in South Bend, but Marcus Freeman got to check the “Notre Dame’s first 14-win season” box.
Continuity table
The continuity table looks at each team’s returning production levels (offense, defense and overall), the number of 2024 FBS starts from returning and incoming players and the approximate number of redshirt freshmen on the roster heading into 2025. (Why “approximate”? Because schools sometimes make it very difficult to ascertain who redshirted and who didn’t.) Continuity is an increasingly difficult art in roster management, but some teams pull it off better than others.
For a title-game finalist, Notre Dame’s continuity is pretty impressive. Freeman didn’t have to do a ton of portal work because his Irish return 10 starters from 2024, plus loads of part-timers and some key injury returnees (namely, left tackle Charles Jagusah and defensive end Jordan Botelho). He plumped up depth at receiver (a necessity) and in the defensive line and secondary, but he stayed in-house to find a replacement for quarterback Riley Leonard. If that proves to be the right call, the Irish will contend again.
Elsewhere, UConn managed to avoid getting completely plucked apart by the aforementioned vultures, and while Wazzu is starting almost completely from scratch, Oregon State has encouraging continuity heading toward the fall.
2025 projections
Notre Dame’s schedule is a strange one: The Irish play projected top-15 teams in each of the first two weeks (at Miami in Week 1, then Texas A&M in Week 2) but don’t play another projected Top 25 team for the rest of the year. If they’re genuinely a title-caliber squad again, the Irish could roll, but all sorts of land mines await — at Arkansas, Boise State, USC, Navy, at Pitt — if their attention drifts.
Out West, OSU and Wazzu did something I enjoy: They arranged a home-and-home. They’ll face off in Corvallis on Nov. 1, then again in Pullman on Nov. 29. (Personally, I think they should make it a best-of-three and play on a neutral site over Championship Week if they split the first two games. Put it in Las Vegas. Call it the “Pac-12 Championship.”)
Notre Dame’s schedule strength will be impacted greatly by how good teams like Arkansas and Boise State turn out to be, but at this moment the Irish are one of the surest playoff contenders on the board. Start 1-1, and you’re in great shape from there. And while UConn does have some roster holes to fill, a schedule featuring nine opponents projected 91st or lower in SP+ should make a third bowl trip in four seasons pretty likely.
Five best games of 2025
Here are the five games involving independents that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under 10 points.
Cal at Oregon State (Aug. 30). With seven games projected within a touchdown or less, Oregon State’s season could go in quite a few different directions; the Beavers start out with two of those games, both at home. If they’re 2-0 when they head to Texas Tech in Week 3, they could be on their way to a lovely campaign. If they’re 0-2, well…
Notre Dame at Miami (Aug. 31). The single-digit requirement means that only one Notre Dame game shows up on this list. Even against Texas A&M in Week 2, the Irish are favored by 10.2. But this Week 1 battle is enormous. With a new quarterback and new defense, Miami is going to be a talented mystery right out of the gate. If the Irish survive this challenge, their CFP odds skyrocket.
Washington at Washington State (Sept. 20). With former South Dakota State head coach Jimmy Rogers taking over (and bringing lots of former Jackrabbits with him), Wazzu will be fascinating to follow. The Cougs will have a couple of decent tests before this Week 4 matchup, but the Apple Cup will be Rogers’ first big test to prove his physical identity is taking hold.
Houston at Oregon State (Sept. 27). Trips to Texas Tech and Oregon are likely to produce two OSU losses, which means that this one will represent the official start to Act II of the Beavers’ season. They could be 3-2 after the Houston game, but they could also theoretically be 0-5.
Duke at UConn (Nov. 8). Even if UConn struggles with an almost entirely new starting defense, the schedule is kind enough that the Huskies are never projected double-digit underdogs. Even Duke, the third of three ACC opponents and the best projected team on the schedule, will visit East Hartford as only about an eight-point favorite here.
CFP contenders
Head coach: Marcus Freeman (fourth year, 33-10 overall)
2025 projection: sixth in SP+, 10.5 average wins
Of the top seven teams in the current SP+ projections, only one, No. 3 Penn State, returns its starting quarterback. For that matter, only three of the top 13 teams do. This is part of the reason for what I feel is the relative offseason overhyping of Clemson — quarterback Cade Klubnik is the proverbial bird in hand even though he’s never ranked higher than 13th in Total QBR.
It’s worth remembering, however, that six of the top seven in Total QBR last year (and 10 of the top 12) were first-year starters at their schools of choice. The bird in hand is only preferable until we know which of the new guys is awesome.
CJ Carr might be awesome. The Saline, Michigan, product — and grandson of former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr — was a top-40 recruit and the No. 2 pocket passer in the class of 2024. He is by most accounts super-smart with a super-strong arm, and he was solid enough this spring that a) Marcus Freeman didn’t feel the need to make any sort of desperate post-spring portal QB acquisition and b) 2024 backup Steve Angeli read the writing on the wall and transferred to Syracuse.
Carr (or, theoretically, sophomore Kenny Minchey) is one of the most important players of the 2025 season in that, if he’s good, Notre Dame might not have a single weakness. For starters, the Irish will have Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price (combined: 1,871 rushing yards, 24 TDs) back at running back. Love is the best returning yards-after-contact back in FBS; only Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and Miami’s Damien Martinez topped him in 2024, and they’re both now in the NFL.
At receiver, CFP semifinal hero Jaden Greathouse is back in the slot, and while Freeman added fewer transfers than most, he did nab Malachi Fields (Virginia) and Will Pauling (Wisconsin), each of whom averaged more yards per route run than any Notre Dame receiver not named Greathouse. The offensive line overcame rampant injuries and extreme inexperience to play at a high level late last season; it lost two starters to the portal, but that was in part because others, like Charles Jagusah and center Ashton Craig, were likely to start over them. The defense, meanwhile, returns 12 of the 20 players who saw 200-plus snaps last season and welcomes 2023 starting end Jordan Botelho and potentially high-value transfers like tackle Jared Dawson (Louisville) and nickel DeVonta Smith (Alabama).
In a way, Notre Dame’s charge to the 2024 title game came ahead of schedule, as evidenced by the massive number of key returnees who are either juniors (Love, Price, Greathouse, Craig, right tackle Aamil Wagner, defensive end Joshua Burnham, defensive tackle Donovan Hinish, linebackers Drayk Bowen and Jaylen Sneed, cornerback Christian Gray) or sophomores (Jagusah, left tackle Anthonie Knapp, defensive ends Bryce Young and Boubacar Traore, linebackers Jaiden Ausberry and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, cornerback Leonard Moore, safety Adon Shuler). The passing game produced almost no big plays of note, and the Irish had to rely on long strings of error-free plays to score points, and despite all the youth around Leonard, they got it. And despite having to start 20 different guys at least once on defense, they consistently delivered, especially against the pass.
It was a seasonlong endorsement of what Freeman is building — right down to how this inexperienced Irish team responded to probably the single most shocking result of the season. And now, in theory, this team could continue growing and developing moving forward. As long as it has a QB.
Well, a QB and a defensive coordinator. With Al Golden moving on to the NFL, Freeman replaced him with former Rutgers head coach and Texas (among others) defensive coordinator Chris Ash. Ash and Golden are awfully similar from a résumé perspective — once up-and-comers, they were both relative failures as head coaches who spent time in the pros before landing in South Bend. But Golden’s overall track record as a head coach and coordinator was a little bit stronger, and the last time Ash was part of either a top-10 NFL defense or a top-40 college defense was 2015. Freeman’s presence assures a pretty high floor, Ash will have lots of fun toys to play with, and Freeman has quickly earned the benefit of the doubt. But it was hard to love this hire.
The schedule does present one extra obstacle: Not only will the Irish obviously need good quarterback play from an inexperienced player, but thanks to the two best projected opponents showing up in the first two weeks of the season, they’ll need it immediately. This roster positively screams “major national title contender in 2026,” but the Irish’s status as a 2025 contender will be determined by how quickly Carr (or Minchey!) looks the part and whether or not Ash can immediately thrive.
Everyone else
Head coach: Jim Mora (fourth year, 18-20 overall)
2025 projection: 84th in SP+, 7.4 average wins
You’re forgiven if you didn’t see this coming. Lord knows I didn’t. Jim Mora’s UConn tenure began with a massive surge from 1-11 to 6-7 in 2022, but the underlying stats suggested it was awfully fluky, and the Huskies crashed to 3-9 in 2023, then began 2024 with a 50-7 faceplant against Maryland.
Following that terrible trip to College Park, however, they ignited, winning nine of their final 12 games, losing to three ACC teams (Duke, Wake Forest and Syracuse) by a combined 15 points and beating everyone else on the docket. The offense dealt with ups and downs but got over 2,200 rushing yards and 18 TDs from a trio of backs — one of whom, Cam Edwards (830 yards, 5.7 per carry), returns — and random big plays from receiver Skyler Bell (who also returns). Under first-year coordinator Matt Brock, meanwhile, the defense basically started and ended drives brilliantly: The Huskies ranked first nationally in three-and-out rate (42.4%), fourth in third-down conversion rate allowed (29.1%) and eighth in red zone touchdown rate allowed (46.5%).
A lot of key components return in 2025: Mora, Brock, Edwards, Bell, quarterbacks Joe Fagnano and Nick Evers, four part- or full-time starting offensive linemen and a pair of excellent DBs in nickel D’Mon Brinson and sophomore corner Cam Chadwick. But when a mid-major team surprises in the mid-2020s, the vultures quickly start hovering. UConn lost four starters to power conference transfers, including three from the dynamite D. In all, of the 13 defenders who started at least four games, Brinson and Chadwick are the only returnees.
Mora tried to strike back the best he could in the portal. He landed 26 transfers in all, including smaller school standouts like running back MJ Flowers (Eastern Illinois), 6-foot-7 offensive lineman Hayden Bozich (Brown), defensive linemen Marquis Black (Gardner-Webb) and Stephon Wright (Texas Southern) and corners Kolubah Pewee Jr. (Georgetown) and Sammy Anderson Jr. (Austin Peay). He also might have identified a potential inefficiency by searching for either guys who were semi-proven but injured in 2024 — receivers Naiem Simmons (USF) and Caleb Burton III (Auburn) — or players like receiver Reymello Murphy (Arizona/ODU), receiver Thai Chiaokhiao-Bowman (Rice/Florida) and linebacker Bryun Parham (Washington/SJSU), multitime transfers who have fallen off of other teams’ radars after nondescript 2024 campaigns.
Mora has been pretty open and interesting regarding his thoughts on the transfer portal, the loyalty of players and whatnot, and in this increasingly transient college football environment, he’s made a lot of astute moves. The defense lost enough players that regression is conceivable, but a more experienced offense (and replenished receiving corps) could pick up the slack, and there are lots of potential wins on the schedule. The outlook for this program flipped quickly.
Head coach: Trent Bray (second year, 5-7 overall)
2025 projection: 73rd in SP+, 6.6 average wins
There are always going to be haves and have-nots in college football, but for a lot of us, it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for some semblance of fairness. If a program invests and hires smartly and puts a strong product on the field, it should be rewarded with more or better opportunities to prove itself, whether it is a historic powerhouse or not.
What happened to Oregon State and Washington State, then, will never sit particularly well. Jonathan Smith returned to his alma mater at a low point — OSU was 1-11 and 120th in SP+ the year before he arrived — and slowly built it into a top-30 program. The Beavers won 18 games with an average SP+ ranking of 23.5 in 2022-23. They beat Oregon and walloped Florida to finish 2022 and beat Utah (which then left for the Big 12), Cal (ACC), UCLA (Big Ten), Colorado (Big 12) and Stanford (ACC) in 2023. And they were rewarded for this turnaround by losing their power conference status … and eventually their head coach and 19 starters, too. With former defensive coordinator Trent Bray taking over in 2024, the Beavers flashed offensive potential and ran the ball well, but a decimated defense allowed at least 31 points seven times and plummeted from 35th to 107th in defensive SP+. The Beavers’ record fell accordingly.
While I can whine about fairness — and boy, do I! — Bray doesn’t have that luxury. He’s tasked with winning games no matter the situation, and he might have crafted a team that can do so in 2025. He held onto the offense’s two best players (running back Anthony Hankerson and wideout Trent Walker) and added former blue-chippers in quarterback Maalik Murphy (Duke) and tight ends Riley Williams (Miami) and Jackson Bowers (BYU), plus a number of offensive line transfers. On defense, he added six transfers to a lineup that returns 14 of the 21 players who started at least once. Edge rusher Nikko Taylor (nine TFLs) is excellent, 345-pound senior tackle Jacob Schuster is a keeper and sophomores like tackles Thomas Collins and Jojo Johnson, edge rusher Zakaih Saez, nickel Sailasa Vadrawale III and corner Exodus Ayers posted decent numbers in small samples. There aren’t any no-brainer successes among the incoming transfers, but edge rusher Walker Harris (Southern Utah) has the size to succeed.
As mentioned above, the schedule offers lots of win opportunities but few guarantees. The Beavers are projected to win 6.6 games on average, but thanks to the high number of close games, they have both a 7% chance of going 4-8 or worse and a 10% chance of going 9-3 or better. If Murphy and Walker form a strong rapport early on, and OSU gets past Cal and Fresno State to start the season, this could be a pretty fun fall in Corvallis. Of course, the opposite is also on the table.
Head coach: Jimmy Rogers (first year)
2025 projection: 82nd in SP+, 5.6 average wins
Wazzu’s 2024 season didn’t go off the rails the same way that OSU’s did. Despite losing quarterback Cam Ward and most of his skill corps — and despite watching Ward damn near win the Heisman and become the No. 1 pick while at Miami — Jake Dickert’s Cougars actually jumped to 22nd in offensive SP+ thanks to a new set of stars like quarterback John Mateer and freshman running back Wayshawn Parker. They beat back-to-back power conference foes, including Apple Cup rival Washington, during an 8-1 start, too. Defense and special teams were both pretty dire, which became particularly costly during four late losses, but they still improved by three wins. It could have been worse.
Of course, it then got worse. Dickert left for Wake Forest, and a whopping 60 Cougars eventually entered the transfer portal, including Mateer (Oklahoma) and Parker (Utah). Only three returning Cougs started more than two games last season; this roster has been stripped to the studs.
It’s been rebuilt with Jackrabbits. Former South Dakota State head man Jimmy Rogers took over and eventually brought 16 SDSU transfers with him. The success of the SDSU program and the volume of incoming Jacks made Wazzu one of the sport’s more interesting teams to me this spring: “Running backs Angel Johnson, Kirby Vorhees and Maxwell Woods combined to rush for 1,403 yards at 7.2 per carry at SDSU last year; they’re all Cougs now. So are defensive backs Tucker Large, Caleb Francl, Matthew Durrance and Colby Humphrey, who combined for 215 tackles, 14 TFLs, 7 interceptions and 20 breakups. This sort of culture transplant has produced both immediate brilliance (Curt Cignetti’s incredible Indiana turnaround in 2024) and the exact opposite (Jay Norvell went just 5-16 in his first two seasons at Colorado State after bringing double-digit transfers from Nevada). A good player culture is finicky and unpredictable, but if Pullman can become Brookings West in that regard, success will follow.”
Walking through the new Wazzu roster, position by position, there’s plenty to like. Quarterback Zevi Eckhaus looked good in relief of Mateer last season, the SDSU running back trio is absolutely dynamite, slot receiver Josh Meredith is a keeper, the offensive line returns two starters and maybe New Mexico State’s best player (guard AJ Vaipulu), the defensive line welcomes eight new transfers (including maybe NMSU’s second-best player, end Buddha Peleti), linebacker Keith Brown was a small-sample box-score filler last year, and the SDSU transplants in the secondary should hold up nicely. But there’s so much turnover that SP+ isn’t really keeping the faith: The Cougs are projected to fall to 82nd. That obviously comes with some massive potential variance, though, and it wouldn’t take much overachievement to flip a lot of games from toss-ups to wins. This is going to be a fascinating experiment.
Texas State is in the final steps of accepting an invitation to the Pac-12, as it has initiated the process of calling a board of regents meeting for Monday to complete the move, sources confirmed to ESPN.
Texas State officials began alerting Sun Belt officials of its formal offer to the Pac-12 and plans to accept, sources said. The Pac-12 and Texas State are expected to finalize the process soon, and the move will happen for the 2026-27 school year for all sports, according to sources. An announcement of the move isn’t expected before Monday.
It takes 72 hours to call a board of regents meeting in the Texas system, according to the state of Texas open meeting laws. By calling the meeting officially Friday, it allows Texas State to have the final meeting Monday.
This will mark the final steps in the courtship of Texas State to the Pac-12. The Bobcats have loomed as the heavy favorite to join the league for months as the eighth football-playing member. (Gonzaga is the league’s ninth member but doesn’t have football.)
The move came down to the final days of a key pressure point for Texas State, as the school’s exit fee to join the Pac-12 for 2026 doubles from $5 million to $10 million on July 1. With formal board approval needed to pay the exit fee and avoid the increase, Texas State’s invitation needed to come at some point this week.
The Pac-12 needed an eighth football member to operate as an FBS conference in 2026. The Bobcats will join Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State, Utah State and Fresno State.
Texas State’s addition hints at the school’s athletic potential and also gives the Pac-12 a niche in the football-rich state of Texas. The school has more than 40,000 students and is situated between Austin and San Antonio.
The Bobcats are coming off back-to-back 8-5 football seasons, which included two bowl wins under head coach G.J. Kinne. Texas State opens the 2025 season against Eastern Michigan, and its first game as a Pac-12 member will be at Texas in 2026.
The Austin Sports Journal was first to report the news of Texas State initiating the final steps for its move to the Pac-12.
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